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Land could go to goats

Lease sought for county site

Forsyth County News

Alyssa LaRenzie

Updated:
Feb. 25, 2010, 8:30 a.m.

Other action

Also Tuesday, the Forsyth County commission:

• Voted 3-2 to buy Firestone Pursuit tires for Sheriff’s Office vehicles for about $84,000. Commissioners Patrick Bell and Brian Tam opposed the measure, wanting instead to accept a higher bid of about $86,000 from a local business.

• Decided to hold a public hearing on proposed changes to the county’s alcohol ordinance. The changes would lower license fees for qualifying veterans groups and exempt leasees from the requirement that property taxes be current. The vote was 5-0.

• Will schedule a public hearing on possible revisions to the county’s sign ordinance, which would allow for electronic signs to be changed every three hours instead of 48. Chairman Charles Laughinghouse voted against the plan, which passed 4-1.

— Alyssa LaRenzie

A request to raise goats on a county-owned site near Lake Lanier left Forsyth County commissioners puzzled Tuesday.

The 5 acres on Young Deer Drive near Lake Lanier in northeastern Forsyth were bought as a possible site for a county water intake plant.

“It’s a piece of property that is otherwise not being used,” County Attorney Ken Jarrard said.

Commissioners questioned what the goats were being raised for and how neighbors would react.

Without those answers, they voted 5-0 to hold a public hearing sometime in April to help them determine whether to extend a lease.

“We ought to consider the people that live there,” Boff said. “I don’t know what it’s like to live next to goats. Maybe it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

According to the man seeking the lease, it just might be.

“Out there, everybody likes the goats,” Kenneth Mincey said. “And there’s some houses out here that are $2 or 3 million. There are always kids petting them through the fence.”

Mincey currently has 4 acres adjacent to the county site. He keeps 40 to 50 goats for sale as breeding stock across the country.

He plans to sell those goats soon and in June import new ones from Australia, which Mincey said will be the first of their kind in this country.

The extra space would be beneficial for the goats and the land, he said. Goats love wooded areas like the county site.

“They make it look like a park out there,” he said. “They just clear clean it up and everything. Instead of it being the wilderness it looks like you could just walk all over it, which you could.”

If the county needed the land back, Mincey said he could easily shift the electric fence and goats back to his property.